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But it is clear Defence Minister Peter MacKay won’t be celebrating it in Guelph, as previously believed.

For the second time this month, MacKay has pulled the plug at the last minute on a scheduled visit to Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School, where he was to receive the school’s National Leadership award.

He was initially to receive the award Monday, Nov. 5, and use the occasion to speak to students about the sacrifices made by veterans to formally launch Veterans’ Week.

MacKay’s office contacted the school late the Friday before to cancel the visit, claiming the minister had to be in Ottawa for an important vote on Monday. There were, in fact, no votes that day.

On Thursday we heard from Lourdes teacher Joe Tersigni, who runs the awards program, that MacKay’s office had once again called off the appearance. Apparently MacKay is to be traveling with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, though we have not yet figured out where they might be going.

We were not particularly surprised at MacKay’s latest no-show.

Guelph must not be a comfortable place for federal Tories, with the ongoing investigation into last election day’s fraudulent robocalls pointing squarely at someone with access to inside Conservative information.

But there is another reason the defence minister might be steering clear of the Royal City.

In February, after Postmedia broke the story that Elections Canada was probing thousands of fraudulent robocalls, MacKay told reporters the calls were inappropriate but that no further investigation was necessary.

He also appeared to point a finger at Guelph native Michael Sona, who was the director of communications for local Conservative candidate Marty Burke. Sona left his job in the office of Conservative MP Eve Adams after a Sun Media story – quoting anonymous sources – linked him to the scandal.

“I think they’ve identified the individual that was involved in this,” MacKay said a week later, though he didn’t use Sona’s name. “That individual is no longer in the employment of the party.”

The difficulty for MacKay is that even now, nine months after those comments, nobody has been publicly identified as behind the robocalls; and in fact there is a fair volume of evidence distancing Sona from the scandal.

In the days following the first no-show, MacKay’s communications chief wrote in emails to the Mercury the minister would not respond to questions about the robocalls scandal or his comments about it earlier this year.

The reason given – that the matter remains under investigation – doesn’t hold much water given that MacKay’s initial comments were also, clearly, offered while the matter was under investigation.

So whether MacKay was prepared to answer robocalls questions, he still would have known they were going to be asked.

Is that really why he backed out?

We’ll likely never know.

Either way, MacKay’s repeated snubbing is disrespectful to Tersigni and to the students and staff at Lourdes who were once again anticipating his visit.

I understand MacKay is busy. But consider the impressive list of previous leadership award recipients – which includes three prime ministers, at least eight provincial premiers and a host of household-name athletes, musicians and other notable Canadians – who have been able to make it to the school.

Of course, none of them had a particularly uncomfortable reason to stay away either.

Scott Tracey is a Mercury staff writer. His Jury of One column appears Fridays. He can be reached at stracey@guelphmercury.com